Working to a New Standard for Government Performance Management Excellence
The International Trade Administration (ITA), one of nine bureaus within the
U.S. Department of Commerce, works to strengthen Americas economy by promoting
exports, opening markets, and ensuring fair competition and compliance with U.S.
trade laws and international trade agreements. This $340 million, 2,300-person
organization is committed to improving its performance to more effectively serve
its customers and stakeholders, and by doing so, to help businesses have more
success in selling to foreign markets and thereby increase U.S. trade revenues.
To that end, in May of 2000 the ITA selected Accenture to design and implement
an organization-wide performance management framework. Accenture was chosen for
its compelling blend of expertise in strategy, government performance management,
and solution development, and its in-depth knowledge of the clients particular
business needs.
The ITA sought to develop a performance management capability to meet the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), which directs federal government agencies to initiate program performance reform with a series of pilot projects in setting program goals, measuring program performance against those goals, and reporting publicly on their progress.1 In response to the GPRA mandate, the ITA selected Accenture for assistance with developing its first-ever Strategic Plan, which the leadership now updates regularly and which serves as a roadmap for the bureaus efforts to provide customer-focused, responsibly managed export assistance. Among the many successes of the Strategic Plan was the consolidation of hundreds of business unit activity measures into 20 organization-wide outcome measures.
In 2001, the ITA decided to evolve the organization-wide performance measures into a comprehensive framework for monitoring and managing the bureaus performance as required by the Presidents Management Agenda and the Office of Management and Budget. The implementation journey necessitated that the ITA develop the Strategic Plans 20 planned performance measures so that each measure could be clearly understood and readily measured throughout the organization. A detailed profile was created for each that included its 1) definition, 2) purpose, 3) owner, 4) desired behavior, 5) calculation, 6) data source, 7) reporting frequency, 8) reporting verification process, 9) target, and 10) supporting performance measures, goals, and objectives.
Furthermore, since the Strategic Plan had not been fully implemented, senior management sought to work with employees to incorporate the organizations strategy and associated performance measures into their daily activities, then hold them accountable for meeting the established performance criteria. Management recognized that efforts to institutionalize performance accountability would be successful only if employees started to adopt new roles, including setting goals and working to reach performance targets in the programs for which they were responsible.
Operationalizing the Strategic Plan created a clear link between the organizations Strategic Plan and departmental performance. By involving employees in target-setting and reporting, the ITA has increased the staffs knowledge of and involvement with the organizations goals, objectives, and performance measures, and has begun to push accountability for performance down to those who have meaningful influence over it. The focus on outcomes serves to clarify for employees which activities are important and helps them prioritize their work efforts.
Following the comprehensive definition of the measures, Accenture worked with the ITA to develop a performance management plan that included milestones, sample data collection memos, protocols, and an overall schedule for selecting and implementing a performance measurement collection and validation reporting system. Application requirements were established and the strengths and weaknesses of multiple software packages were quantified through a weighted analysis of the ITA application needs. A panel of ITA end users then observed product demonstrations and studied the features of their top four software packages to select the one that would best enable the organization to start performance management on a manageable scale and at an affordable cost, then grow as its capabilities evolved.
The last step in developing the performance management framework entailed creating and executing a Software Implementation Plan, which outlined the schedule for building and deploying the system. This effort not only included installing the software, populating it with performance data, and training end users, but also developing a Performance Management Handbook, Performance Management Protocols, and an Application Growth Strategy. These materials formally documented standards and protocols, thereby ensuring that the performance management software would be a living system, transcending any potential management or organizational changes.
The automated measurement system enables the ITA to collect, validate, and communicate performance results through a standardized process. It is no longer necessary for the ITA staff to pull measure data from multiple sources or manually generate different types of reports from the same information — Performance Measure Owners have the ability to tailor the applications standard reports to communicate their specific outcomes. In short, the organization has started the transformation from paper-based, activity-centered, and spreadsheet-driven measurement to holistic, online performance management that is more accessible and customer-focused.
The most striking feature of the ITA s performance management framework is its potential to serve as an ongoing catalyst for results-based management. The organization is moving toward all business units having responsibility and accountability for managing their own performance within the context of the organization-wide strategy. Measuring performance at the organization-wide level will enable the ITA to begin analyzing its operational effectiveness and to reallocate budget and planning resources as needed. To facilitate this process, the ITAs budget was recently restructured to align with the organizations performance goals and map to the management framework. Furthermore, as employees come to understand that the ITA measures its performance on those activities that are its greatest priorities, subtle shifts in behavior are taking place, with programs beginning to add measures that support the organization-wide measures, thereby effectively rolling the performance management framework down through the organization.
The implementation of a performance management framework provides the ITAs leaders with the quantified performance results they need to examine outcomes and adjust their approach, as well as to demonstrate results delivered and justify budget requests. The organization has begun to streamline and focus its management and activities by moving from hundreds of activity-based measures to a select few outcome- and process performance-oriented ones. Despite its unique charter and business model, the ITA found that no public sector organization is so distinctive that it cannot learn from performance management best practices. The fact that the ITAs performance management program not only has continued, but also is still maturing, is a testament to its success.
For more information about the ITA, please go to www.ita.doc.gov. The ITAs Strategic Plan and performance measures are available at www.ita.doc.gov/ooms/ITAMeasures/ ITAStrategicPlan.pdf.
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources, and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills, and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 80,000 people in 47 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$11.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2002. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
